This is going to be another one of my uberly long and overdue updates so, please bear with me.
In fact, I’m going to provide you with an outline to make it easier to read and refer back to later.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Newbie registration issue
2. Minimum characters per post
3. Chat threads
4. Advanced (WYSIWYG) editor interface
5. New profile field & location field properties
6.
7. Usergroup colors
8. New member of the Wizengamot (admin)
9. Ministry of Magic RPG takes off
10. New profile fields & postbit formatting
11. Ministry leadership team
That’s a wrap
1. Newbie registration issue
I know a lot of you with friends signing up have had some issues (or maybe you yourself were having issues). I am happy to announce that our technical staff has finally gotten to the bottom of the issue. Before the server switch we had set in place a kind of ‘switch’ to automatically bump new registrations from an awaiting activation group to the newbie group but, apparently when we moved the switch disappeared. We’ve found a way around this problem so there should be no more delay between registering on SS and being able to post. We’ve also updated all the links that newbies see so there shouldn’t be any problems actually getting to the forums to post now, either.
2. Minimum characters per post
Now that we’ve had a chance to cool down a bit, we’ve reduced the minimum characters per post from 10 back to 5. This should make it easier for those of you playing games in Zonko’s. Please don’t abuse this reduction or we will increase it again.
3. Chat threads
You may have also noticed that we’re phasing out chat threads. I did a search one day for the word "chat" in thread titles and came up with well over 100 different threads which were posted just for chatting. Chatting is definitely an important aspect in a community such as ours, but chat threads are incredibly draining on the server, slow connections, and cause timeout errors. We never intended to have so many. The only chat thread that should be around is the TP (or for those who don’t know SS slang,
St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies). The games threads are also really draining, but an integral part of the site. With that in mind, we are cutting out the chat threads from the
Fan Clubs. Fan Clubs are for discussing a character or actor, not for chatting about other things. If you wish to just chat with friends, use the
TP. We are also developing a new feature which should help alleviate the chat thread issue.
4. Advanced (WYSIWYG) editor interface
A lot of you guys may have been using our advanced WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) and noticed that instead of the word processor type look you used to have all you’re getting is a bunch of code. This is because we have removed the WYSIWYG editor option. For those of you who have grown up on SS with the editor it will come as a blow, but it was incredibly painful for the mods because it adds a lot of unnecessary coding to posts which makes it difficult when editing posts written using the WYSIWYG editor or trying to pick out the siggy coding in the
Submit Your Signature thread. If you want to see what your post will look like now, you’ll have to utilize the ‘Preview Post’ feature. It’s an extra step but, believe me, it is well worth it in terms of the headaches you’ve saved the site staff.
5. New profile field & location field properties
Speaking of extras, we have just added a new profile field! A lot of people have been using the "Location" field for crediting people for images or other non-location related information. So, we have decreased the maximum characters allowed for the location field to 20 which should reduce the location line next to posts to just one line. But, to make up for this reduction we added the "Image Acknowledgments" profile field. Now you can credit the lovely people who create your avatars, signatures and profile pics. The field will show up in the "Additional Information" section of your profile. You can edit this information at any time by going to your
User CP and then clicking on
"Edit Profile" in the left-hand menu.
6.
Now, we’re all excited about new profile fields but, I just
know you’re gonna fall over with joy when I point out that we’ve added some nifty new banana smilies! I ask you: what could be better than adding new banana smilies? Well, how about seeing all the bananas in a news post?
7. Usergroup colors
And, yet another change:
ORANGE moderators. We always have a lot of fun changing the usergroup colors around for various holidays so we thought it would be a nice change to make the mods a pretty orange instead of their traditional drab gray when we switched everyone back from Valentine’s Day. We also tweaked some of the other colors. For instance, Hufflepuffs are now gold, a shade of yellow instead of orange. It’s a little difficult to see but, at least it’s closer to Hufflepuff yellow than orange was.
The member usergroup color has also been tweaked slightly, though it may continue to get tweaked in our hunt for the perfect light blue.
8. New member of the Wizengamot (admin)
Even more news! Boy, this is a long update and thanks for being so patient with me. This is the last in a long series of updates about the site in general before I get to the last item on my list of updates, but it is certainly not the least. I want to welcome
allucha to the Wizengamot!! Allucha has been heading up the
Department of International Cooperation (language support) forums as a hit wizard for the past several months. He’s done a terrific job, so we’ve promoted him to the administration team to give him the tools he needs to be an even more effective leader for this very important section of our international community.
9. Ministry of Magic RPG takes off
And finally, to wrap this up:
The Ministry RPG is finally open! You’ve been waiting for years to have a place to go once your character graduated from Hogwarts and now you do! I know many of you didn’t believe me when I kept telling you "we will have something eventually," but here’s the proof! Anyone who has 10 valid posts and entered the members usergroup is allowed to join. You don’t have to be sorted, you don’t have to play in the School RPG first, anyone can join! So, if you haven’t signed up yet, please take advantage of our open enrollment still going on now. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll keep it open, so fill out
your application for employment today!
10. New profile fields & postbit formatting
Due to the opening of the new Ministry RPG section we’ve added a couple more profile fields and changed the postbit look a bit. (The postbit is the information on the side of your posts where your username and avatar are located). Ministry character name and Ministry department are the two new fields and more may be added at a later date. These two bits of information are now appearing below your Hogwarts RPG information (if you have it) in your postbit. We’ve also added some line breaks in the postbit to make it easier to read and distinguish your user info from your Hogwarts info from your Ministry info, making it much easier for those referencing your postbit for RP purposes.
11. Ministry leadership team
Lastly, I want to apologize for not announcing those members who were chosen for leadership roles in the Ministry like I said I would. I got a little too excited and ended up forgetting all about it once they were chosen. So, please make sure you check out the
Ministry Employees thread which lists our illustrious leaders, shifty special characters and all of the new Ministry employees.
Thank you all for being patient with this update. I hope you found it informative. Feel free to drop me a PM, reply in here or post in the
Prefect’s Office if you have any questions, comments, suggestions or concerns. I love hearing from members and I don’t think I’m as scary as I look. If you managed to read the whole thing from start to finish I’ll share some of my cookies with you (chocolate chip or white chocolate with macadamia nuts).
Minister of Magic Update 
:banarope: 
